1408077 - Add WebExtension API for sidebar auto-hide and resize to lower values than current

Status: NEW

(WebExtensions :: Frontend, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Paul Oiegas [:poiegas], PM for (Ecosystem QA, Services QA, WebCompat QA, Ads QA, and Solo QA teams)]

The Tab Center Redux WebExtension (https://goo.gl/upKg1q) is an attempt to recreate the original Tab Center SDK based experiment featured on the Mozilla Test Pilot website. 

The extension allows the users to have their tabs vertically displayed inside the sidebar, but right now it lacks some of the key features that were available in the original experiment. Some of them are the option to auto hide the sidebar when the pointer is not hovering it and the ability to resize it to a minimum value that made only the websites favicons visible.
If possible, please add an API that will allow the developers to do these things.

Comment 1

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

I don't think we should do this from a webextension perspective.  If it were to be done, it should be a design in how the sidebar generally operates in Firefox.

Comment 2

[Andy McKay]

This is very similar to bug 1374217, could probably even dupe to it.

Comment 3

[Paul Oiegas [:poiegas], PM for (Ecosystem QA, Services QA, WebCompat QA, Ads QA, and Solo QA teams)]

When it comes to the ability to resize to lower and higher values than it is currently implemented, yes. But when it comes to the option of auto hide while not hovered, then I don't think it's a duplicate.

Comment 4

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Bug_Triage/Projects/Bug_Handling/Bug_Husbandry#Update_affecteds

Comment 5

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Resizing is well-covered. Webextension APIs should live in that component for triage.

Comment 6

[Luca Greco [:rpl] [:luca] [:lgreco]]

We could consider it if it would be a supported feature of the Firefox Desktop Sidebar UI, marking a P5 for now because there no current plans, and design-decision-needed to state that it is also pending on a API decision.